A wide variety of applications require the use of a square root extractor. For example, at least some electric-force-balance instruments are non-linear devices used to measure various physical phenomena. Such instruments typically develop an internal restoring force which is proportional to the square of an applied analog control signal. The analog control signal is usually provided by a digital controller, which supplies a digital command signal, and a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which converts the digital command signal to an analog command signal. This analog command signal is supplied to a driver which provides the analog control signal to the electric-force-balance instrument.
As suggested by the above, the response of the electric-force-balance instrument varies as the square of the amplitude of the control signal. Accordingly, the response of the electric-force-balance instrument is non-linear with respect to its input control signal. Because of this non-linearity, linear control algorithms cannot be used directly to control the electric-force-balance instrument. Instead, such linear control algorithms must incorporate additional processing which linearizes the response of the instrument, thereby adding extra cost and complexity to the electric-force-balance instrument.
The present invention, therefore, is directed to an arrangement for providing an output signal that has an amplitude which is proportional to the square-root of the amplitude of an input signal. This arrangement is advantageous because it permits the direct use of linear control algorithms to control instruments having non-linear responses.